Title: Good Call!Characters/Pairings: Jayne/River pre-rayne. Brad & Dan Genre: Humour Rating: 15 for swearages Summary: Jayne has a problem and goes to the only two people he knows, who can help him out!

Author's Note: A big happy birthday to the lovely thefriskyfire my Aussie pal! I know now, technically its not your birthday anymore (you being ahead of me in time) but I had to do something for you.

It was a little rushed and it might be silly, a Brit trying to write Aussie, but I thought you might like it and someday I will write a proper less rushed ending for it. I might even expand on it. I don't know. I just hope you lenjoy.

Non-beta'd so all the mistakes are mine.

I want to point out the characters of Brad & Dan are not my own. See them here in what I reckon are some of the BEST ads ever:

Jayne was worried. Actually, he was more than worried, he was gorram humped.

Serenity had landed at the sky-plex and for the mercenary there was only one place where he could go for help. None of the other crew could know about this so he couldn’t get advice from them lest he rustle up even more problems that—honestly—he didn’t need right now. This was his last hope.

He shoved his way through the crowd, eliciting startled cries and shouts of protests as people and stands were knocked over. Some tried to challenge him, but they only got a gun in their face and a snarling growl with some spit.

Jayne didn’t have time to be dealing with these ruttin asses, so he stormed through, caring not that he was leaving even more chaos in his wake. Eventually he came to the place he was looking for, the place where he knew his two friends would be waiting.

The lucky gorram men had somehow managed to pick the best spot on the entire complex. Vendors and businessmen had to go through hell to try and get a good position which would help their trade, but to have an overview of the whole mall and be next to the biggest window on the entire station was just crafty.

Jayne had known these guys for a long time, and if there was anyone that could help him out with his problem, it would be them. He reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, and began to leap upward, skipping steps two or four at time. One poor soul got in his way and was shoved over the side. Luckily for the man, he fell on the stall selling cushions, of all things.

Sure enough, lounged out like kings under a huge yellow gazebo like tent, were his old advisors, happily swigging back their drinks and entertaining two very nice looking wimmin.

“Hey guys…you gotta sec?!”

“JAYNE-O!” The men’s faces lit up they were genuinely pleased to see him. They politely ushered the wimmin away and the short slightly tubbier dark haired man, reached to a cooler box beside him and threw Jayne a beer.

“Long time no, see mate!” he said. Jayne nodded and sunk down on to the only other piece of furniture they had. The tiny little table creaked under his weight. He cracked the bottle cap off with his teeth and then took a long drag that nearly finished up the whole bottle.

“Whoa, mate! Steady on!” The taller thinner and sandy haired man reached out for the beer, but instead he got his hand slapped away. It hurt, Jayne could tell, but then his friend Bradley should have known better than to try and take away a man’s beer. “Sorry, but what’s got you all riled up?”

“It’s not good, fellas. It ain’t good at all. You two hav’ta help me.”

“For you, mate…anything.” Dan said cracking open another beer. “Now what seems to be the problem?”

Jayne swigged back some more and thankfully this time, the two men from the New Sydney colony patiently waited for him. It took another bottle of beer before Jayne could even think about speaking, but when he was ready…it was plain on the faces of his two friends, that they knew a little bit as to what was troubling him.

“Is it a Sheila, Jayne-o?” asked Bradley scratching his lightly coloured beard and winking politely at a passing woman who flashed him a smile.

“Well….yeah…a very annoying, gorram creepy, crazy girl!”

“So you like this girl then?” asked Dan, leaning back in his lounger and propping his hands behind his head. Jayne scowled at him and there was a rumble of menace from his throat.

“She’s a hai chong! She is doin’ my gorram head in! You’ve gotta help me out here! I can’t sleep, I’m barely eatin’ and when I’m on the boat I feel her watchin’ me all the time with her creepy feng le eyes! I’m a wreck! She’s gonna be the death of me!”

Again the two men gave each other the all-knowing look and smiled at Cobb. They gave him another beer which this time, he slowly sipped. They would help him, they always had. It was who they were.

“Seems quite a di yu of a situation you got there, mate.” Bradley said, taking a long swig of his beer himself. “Have you seen a doctor about this problem?”

“Can’t. The ship’s doc is the Crazy’s brother. He’s just as annoyin’…more so.”

Again Dan and Bradley nodded and smirked.

“This is a serious thing indeed if you’re not eatin’ or sleepin’, Jayne-o. It just isn’t like you.” Dan uttered.

“You can help me, right? I mean…ya can come up with a plan to get rid of the girl? Get her off the boat?”

“Jayne-o, the solution to this problem is a toughie indeed. You’re probably not gonna like what we recommend.”

When Dan offered up the entire ice box of beer, Jayne’s eyes widened in horror. These two never gave away all of their beer to others, especially when there wasn’t another spare cool box just behind it. He gave his advisor’s his best “huh?” expression and received the go ahead.

“You’re gonna need ‘em, mate.” Said Bradley.

“Ta shi suoyou diyu de biaozi de ma! Tell me.”

“Promise you won’t try to shoot anything? Especially us?”

Jayne nodded and then for added assurance, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cigar for each of them. He lit his own and then drank some more beer. He was prepared.

“You’re not eatin’…or sleepin’.” Dan stated.

“Well duh! I know that already!!”

“Irritable.” Both the advisors chorused.

Jayne was about to snap back, saying he wasn’t, but as always his friends were right. He was irritable. A lot more so than usual. He’d been snapping at all the crew recently and his temper, especially when it came to the girl, hadn’t been calm.

“And you find this lack of calm is definitely because of this Shelia…what’s her name?”

“River. Though I just call her Moonbrain, Moony, Crazy, Jellybrain, or whatever name fits with her loopy state o’mind at the time”

There was a long hiss of disapproval from the two.

“Oh mate, never call a Shelia names. Why don’t you try calling her River? You might get a better response from her.” Bradley sniffed at his cigar.

“Better response?! The Core girl is gorram flipped! She speaks in long complicated gibberish that I don’t understand! ‘Sides I don’t even want her talkin’ to me! I want her to leave me alone! So why would I be all nice to her?”

“Have you ever considered that the reason why she won’t leave you alone is cuz she likes you? The lady folk do have different ways of trying to gain a bloke’s attention.”

The table squeaked suddenly and Jayne’s whole body tensed, stiff as board. There was fear in his eyes.

“The crazy bint likes me?! She has a crush on me, is tha’ what’cha sayin’? Aw, now that ain’t so, cuz she does all she can to piss me off. She calls me names too!”

“Jayne-o…” Dan sighed and shook his head, before grinning. “Tell us more about her and what does she do, that annoys you specifically?”

“Huh, this could take a while.”

“For you mate?” Bradley gave him the thumbs up. “We got all the time in the ‘Verse.”

So Jayne did. He told the two Australian’s everything about her, from the moment River came onto Serenity, the problems with her brain and the things the Academy did. He also told them how everything she did irritated the hell out of him. Her laugh, her staring, the way she didn’t wear boots on the ship. Her clothes, her long complicated speaking. Her fits, her creepy uncanny way of knowing what a person was thinking.

“Oh! A Reader!” The two Aussies chorused together with wonder and clinked their beer bottles together. “Niice!”

Jayne went on to tell them more, about how she could fight, how she had beaten him up and taken on tons of Reavers. He didn’t leave anything out. It took over several hours before he finally stopped talking. Most of the beers had already gone, but thankfully a beautiful looking Asian woman brought a new box. Brad, Dan and Jayne gave her the thumbs up and slightly intoxicated grins

But what the two advisors really noticed, was that Jayne didn’t ogle the woman, or watch her behind when she walked away. They shook their heads, still grinning.

“She tipped soup inta ma hair on more than one occasion!!” Jayne ranted, waving the bottle about. “Gorram, minx! And you know what else…she flooded the shower room and so all the hot water was lost! It meant I had to go without a shower for another whole week! Two weeks I was covered in ruttin’ that mud! Two whole gorram weeks! I mean…tell me how any of what I told ya, constitutes her likin’ me!”

“Pretty obvious if you think about it mate.” said Bradley.

“Did you not hear me mention ‘bout her slashin’ a knife to me chest?!”

“It’s true this young gal’s got some problems, thanks to Parliament.” Dan continued, briefly looking at Bradley. The two of them scowled with utter distaste at the mention of Parliament. “But here’s my reasoning. You said River is a Reader? She knows what’s in your head, right?”

Jayne shuddered, took another swig of beer and nodded.

“Then it’s clear she’s doing all this to rile you up on purpose.”

Jayne smiled at Dan’s logic and felt proud that his friends were agreeing with him.

“She’s seen into your mind and is acting in the way she knows you’ll respond to,” Bradley said. “River knows and to be honest mate…we know as well. You like her back!”

“You shittin’ me?”

“Not shittin’ yer mate.” They chimed together again.

Jayne’s face looked as if someone had let off a huge stink bomb in the mall. He was confused. He couldn’t believe that they had come out with this, but in all those times he’d sought their advice, Brad and Dan had never been wrong. Were they right about this?

He liked the Crazy core girl?

He swigged once, then twice on his beer and thought it over. Sure, she had been on his mind a lot, but that was just little stuff.

Stuff like, what was she up to? Why didn’t she wear the tighter fitting more practical clothes on jobs instead of the frilly dresses and large jumpers? How did she bend them legs like that when she danced? Where did she hide his favourite hat this time?

Little things.

“That’s what you reckons? That me and that Crazy psycho have likin’s for each other?”

The men nodded. Jayne still didn’t like it. If these laid back Aussies were anyone else, he would have punched their lights out for suggesting things, but these blokes didn’t give advice to just anyone. The haze of alcohol wasn’t making anything clearer.

In fact none of this was making his situation any better. It felt worse knowing that Looney Brain had a crush on him and even more so to even contemplate him liking her back. If Mal and Simon or any of the crew found out…he would be majorly ruttin’ humped.

“We can tell it’s a lot to take in, mate.” Dan sighed and leaned forward to pat the mercenary on his back. “Why don’tcha have a think on it and come back when you’re ready? We’re not goin’ anywhere.”

“You’re always welcome to talk to us…you know that.” Bradley bundled four more bottles of beer into Jayne’s arms. “Right?”

Jayne bobbed his head, clearly still reeling from the revelation or even the possibility that he might like River Tam. He drained one of the bottles and rose up, lost in a turmoil of thoughts and possibilities. He waved a half enthused wave and slowly trundled off, muttering cusses and denials under his breath.

“He’ll come around.” Bradley said, picking up an ice-planet from next to his lounger.

“Serious case of the denials. The little Sheila was correct.”

“I thank you.”

The men turned round and grinned at the young woman emerging from the pillar behind their tent. Their faces brightened up.

“RIV-AZ!”

River clapped her hands, bounced up and down and greeted them both at the same time with a huge hug.

“Thank you so much for participating in the awakening of the ape-man!! I am in your debt!”

MATE! Oh you wonderful, generous girl! My very own birthday fic and it has beautiful Aussie boys giving Jayne advice! And River, that conniving little minx, good call indeed! Have seen those two before, but the youtube clips made me laugh my ass off.

Feeling super spoilt and I LOVE this fic! I would love to see more, if you thought there was more to go on, in fact I would love seeing Brad and Dan give the other fellas some advice, Mal on Inara, Simon on Kaylee, Wash on Zoe, whatever, I'd just love to see it!

Excellent therapists :)

Thank you so so so much babe, this was fantabulous! Happy Birthday to me indeed! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

Yay! I'm utterly thrilled you liked! I remembered it was your birthday and then suddenly the idea popped into my head! I may very well do some more and hey, having Brad and Dan give advice for the others as well....that sounds a brilliant idea!